Search results for: University school collaboration

The purpose of this study was to examine ways that the unique model involving nested collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs) within a teacher education program led to a) learning for the members school/university partnership and b) refined visions of what it means to be a teacher. The findings indicated that teacher candidates came away from the experience seeing teaching as a collaborative endeavor. The ongoing feedback from both their mentor teacher and cohort colleague was critical to their learning to teach process. Furthermore, the collaborative work accelerated their opportunities to learn as they learned from both their successes and mistakes along with their partner’s successes and mistakes.

This article describes a 3-year qualitative study on a English language arts teacher preparation approach that places middle school students at the center and interweaves various technologies into the study of The Outsiders. Using the ever-popular young adult novel, The Outsiders, as a nexus of literature study and an integration of technology and music, the authors created The Outsiders Project. For three years the authors produced, directed, studied, and analyzed The Outsiders Project (TOP) to determine the impact of these experiences on their preservice teachers and to examine what they learned from the middle school students. The findings reveal that the preservice teachers were very surprised to discover that the middle school students really did want to learn. Another lesson the preservice teachers reported they learned about middle school students was that all students can contribute.

The authors wanted to understand the challenges hybrid teacher educators face in efforts to foster third spaces in partnerships. They investigated the ways university-based teacher educators foster and mediate relationships to work toward a collective third space. The authors investigated the relationships encountered in partnership contexts, challenges and tensions faced in these relationships, and ways they negotiated tensions and worked to overcome impediments to developing third space over time. In addition, the authors propose a framework for moving beyond traditional notions of oppositional triadic relationships of student teacher, mentor teacher, and supervisor in recognition of complex social ecologies in the third space.

This article reports on some of the factors that contribute to an effective partnership between an urban Australian university and a State Department of Education. The partnership entails as a key purpose the development of school Centres of Excellence which contribute to the preparation of pre-service teachers. Findings point to ways in which the partnership has enhanced pre-service teacher engagement and learning and also indicate ways in which partners in both institutions might further strengthen the partnership.